


how deep is the ocean

by katydidmischief (cassiejamie)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aphasia, Brain Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiejamie/pseuds/katydidmischief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is silent the first week and there's plenty of ill-made jokes behind the man's back, gleeful comments about the blessed quiet. Then the liquor cabinet empties faster than ever before and there's only one person who could be consuming the bottles at such an alarming rate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

(It's only in the aftermath, the city falling in chunks around them and Loki's staff still sparking despite being in pieces, that they do a headcount, and realize that Tony's missing.)

Steve finds him in an alleyway two blocks up. The suit's crumpled in places and Tony's bleeding heavily from a head wound—God, he can see _skull_ —though somehow, he's still conscious enough to say, "Wits black," before grimacing.

No one knows what 'Wits black' means, but Steve figures, later, they'll ask him and it'll probably be some joke or another. But they don't actually get the chance to ask—he spends twelve and a half days in Medical and only Coulson and Fury are privy to the reasons why he's held without visitors, which neither of them are willing to reveal. Then he comes back to the mansion, and Barton and Coulson are on either side, and it's all to obvious: "Bright archway," he mutters and clenches a fist, before turning, walking away.

"Mr. Stark's head injury was more damaging than first believed," Coulson tells them after Tony slams the door to his room. "It's unknown if this is temporary or permanent, but according the last round of tests, it's more likely permanent."

He tells them about aphasia and the realization that Tony's ability to understand the spoken or written word had been affected as well. He tells them that for the time being the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and other teams will be dealing with any issues that arise while the team gets their bearings.

"For now, Mr. Stark's on an indefinite standdown. Until we can figure out how to correct the damage or find a way to communicate, he can't be on an active battleground."

Steve nods and glances between the others, mind already working over how to restructure their standard fight configurations; he thinks, _It'll be quieter, at least_ , then feels guilty and says, "Is it all right for him to have access to his lab?"

"Limited. Barton's going to stay with him for the time being and JARVIS will alert anyone if Tony gets in on his own—we're assuming he remembers where everything is and what it does, but until we're sure of it..." There's no need to continue, they all understand, and after a few more questions, Coulson leaves and they're left on their own, unsure.

* * *

Tony is silent the first week and there's plenty of ill-made jokes behind the man's back, gleeful comments about the blessed quiet. No more running commentaries during missions, no more rambling one-sided discussions about his projects, no more bitching about the forced collaborations with R&D when upgrading armors and weapons.

Then the liquor cabinet empties faster than ever before and there's only one person who could be consuming the bottles at such an alarming rate. They silently, collectively agree to not restock the cabinet; Tony starts digging around their rooms instead and when he steals a bottle of twelve-year old scotch, Steve doesn't even mention it.

"They still haven't figured out how to translate?" Natasha asks one afternoon, leaning into the doorjamb.

Steve tries not to show how she's startled him, appearing so quietly at his side, and he looks back at Tony who's passed out at one of his worktables, blueprints spinning in midair on all sides. "No. They need his input to figure out a guide, but the last tech they sent to work on it with him left in tears."

She was in Paris on a solo mission, but she's heard stories of the young woman from Medical who'd not just left in tears, but sobbing hysterically as her junior agent chaperone had ushered her away. Yeah, Natasha could see how the process of figuring out a way to understand Tony would be slow-going with that incident in mind.

"Bruce and Clint did a quick search of their rooms—they're both down the bottles of Scotch Fury gave out for the holidays."

"I'll find out what it cost... give them the money for a replacement."

She glances at Tony, a sad little smile graces her lips, and she says, in a soft voice, "It's not the money or the booze. He's killing himself, or in the very least, his liver."

Steve sighs, soft and mournful. "I know, but it's going to get worse before it gets better," he tells her, then adds, "Go back upstairs. I'm going to sit here for a while, maybe see if he'll eat something."

"Good luck," she mutters and she does mean it: no one's seen Tony in the kitchen, he hasn't turned up at mealtimes, and the only reason they're sure he's getting some food in him is because JARVIS confirms he is. Natasha leaves with a last glance at Tony, heading back to the main floor.

Alone again, Steve watches for a moment, taking in how even in sleep Tony looks broken down, worn, and he swallows thickly. He forces himself from the spot he's been standing in for the last hour or so, silent as he moves into the room and crosses over to the Tony and looks down at the man's been working on.

A list of words is flat under Tony's hand, a column in chicken-scratch handwriting and everything is misspelled.

* * *

Steve takes over Clint's job monitoring Tony whenever he can, takes to sitting in the workshop with him, and he's not wrong in his belief that things were going to get worse: there are whole days Tony refuses to leave the shop and days when he leaves with his hands bloodied; Tony drinks so heavily that sometimes Steve calls the medics to check vitals, and when the booze finally runs out—when everyone has individually decided to no longer keep it in the Mansion in any way—he shakes and vomits, and he takes up smoking.

Occasionally there are good days and Steve prays hard for them. Those days Tony's a little more willing to eat, a little less morose, and Steve can get him to hum along with the too-loud music. (Steve's really starting to love that music.) On the even better days, Tony will sing along and it's the only time Tony seems to relax; Steve wishes he knew why song lyrics didn't seem to be affected by the aphasia if only because maybe— _maybe_ —knowing why would help fix the rest.

They're both singing along to You Me at Six this morning, a band Steve's surprised to have found a liking for, and Steve's got his sketchbook out while Tony works on something for the suit. Of course, until they can figure out how to work around the aphasia, Iron Man is benched but no one can, wants to, or will tell Tony what he already knows, and it makes Tony happy to design new pieces and upgrade others so again, no one can, wants to, or will tell Tony to stop.

"You're sitting on top about to fall through."

Tony's so sure about his words that it startles Steve when a wrench drops and Tony growls, "Knulle." It's like a slap in the face for both of them, reality coming through and Tony's face closes off; he stops singing and Steve thinks, _Please, don't shut down. Don't shut down, Tony._

But it's a fruitless plea: the music goes silent and Tony turns away from Steve, choosing another table to work at that's halfway across the space.

How Steve resists throwing his sketchbook, even he doesn't know.

* * *

Eventually things start getting better. Tony stops hiding so much in the workshop, but he can't handle being in the midst of lively discussions, choosing to stick close to Steve, Clint, or Phil, if the agent is there.

He speaks a little more, frustrated every time, but he still does it, and in time, hidden behind drawings of Tony, Peggy, Bucky, the team, there comes to be a list, two columns wide and filled with cross-outs galore amid sets of matched words. Some are definitely misspelled and some are in other languages and there's no discernible connection that can logically made to explain why Tony's starting saying Sky instead of Out and Black instead of Hurt, saying curses in Norwegian or Italian.

It honestly doesn't matter though, not to Steve, who manages so many months later, to carry on a stilted conversation with Tony that leaves them both grinning like idiots. Eventually the list can no longer help translate, but for those few minutes, Steve _understands_ and Tony _understands_ and it's perfect.

(Tony talks to him about a handful of silly things, nothing too emotionally-laden, but Steve can still hear the desperate, wanting need underneath it all to have someone to talk to. Can hear the loneliness. It breaks his heart.)

It spurs Steve on to figure out more words, more translations, and it's only when he's on the team's next mission, half a world away from Tony altogether and they're all miserable and worrying about him (even though Sitwell is with him and he says everything A-OK), that the idea hits.

"What song is this?" he asks suddenly, an ear to the lyrics while Clint thumbs through the song list and tells him, "Reason to Believe. Why?"

Steve doesn't answer, his mind wound up in the possibilities...

* * *

"Here."

Two weeks later and they're home, everyone a bit ragged around the edges but that'll clear up quickly now that they're back in the Mansion, and all but Tony are gathered in the living room. There's some football game on that Thor's yelling at (Steve has never and will never ask who got him interested in the sport); Clint is nearly passed out on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, while Phil and Natasha both have their laptops out and open. Bruce, predictably, has his face in a book that Steve couldn't begin to understand if the title is anything to go by.

He feels no guilt interrupting their moment of relaxation and repeats, "Here," as he puts down a stack of papers beside a stack of CDs.

Clint blinks back to awareness, quick as always, and he makes a face at the items at his feet. "New team-building exercise?"

"You might call it that."

They all wait for the punchline.

"You're all going to talk to Tony."

Bruce puts down his book, confusion clearly written on his face. "Did someone figure out a translation method?"

"No. But I think I figured out a way around that problem."

Clint asks, "How?" The voice of their collective thoughts. (Seriously, he'd love to be able to get up to shit with Tony again—there's an intern in R&D that needs to be taken down a few pegs—and if Medical can't figure it out, then someone has to and hey, if it's Steve, Clint will totally love to fling that in the faces of a few of the more obnoxious of the Med Staff.)

"I've been working on his vocabulary, but it's going to take time and he gets frustrated about it." Steve rubs his chin as he goes on, saying, "He threw the picture book at my head when I showed it to him."

"Are these all songs?" Clint, again.

"They are. Music lyrics seem to be the only thing that he can understand and repeat without a problem."

Natasha looks less than sold on the idea. "So we're going to use music lyrics to talk to Tony?"

"Hopefully."

"Have you tried this yet?"

"No."

"Oh-kay." Clint flips through the pages of his packet, closes it, and says, "Well, this'll be fun. I'll take first strike—have the first aid kit ready."

* * *

Clint walks away from the experiment with a gash over one eye that Coulson cleans and closes with butterfly bandages before giving Steve a pointed look.

Everyone, thankfully, remains mute over the failure.

* * *

The frustration, that evening, wasn't Tony's.

"Toast plant?" _You okay?_

Steve doesn't answer for a moment, not wanting to have to figure out a way to explain that he feels like he's let Tony down nor have to find the right words to say that he'd been so sure it would work. After a moment, though, he shakes his head, "Left."

Tony gives him a look and starts to speak, only to bite it off in the center, and he looks back at his work. For a moment he's silent, then quietly, hesitatingly, Tony slides a piece of paper toward him.

There's a drawing, crudely done and somewhat abstract, but Steve can discern his shield and the Arc Reactor. Between the two, on a stick table, is a plate with something unidentifiable. Beside it is a candle, the flame bigger than the stick Tony's drawn.

Steve forces himself to stop staring, translating, trying to put the appropriate words to what Tony appears to be asking, and he turns to his friend. Waits.

It takes a few minutes for Tony to understand that his drawing may not have been completely obvious and he points to himself, to the Arc Reactor, then pauses before pointing to the Shield and to Steve. Another pause, and then he points to the table and, pulling the paper back, adds a wine glass and the most hilarious rendition of a butler. (He's an engineer, not an artist, thank you very much.) He pushes it back and then returns to his work while Steve reaches for his book, for the list now transferred to a ledger of its own; it doesn't take long before Tony's hand is caught and he looks back at Steve.

"Fries?" _Date?_

"Right." _Yes._

The grin comes on involuntarily, and Steve nods, because of course; he keeps grinning as he strokes his thumb over Tony's palm and their fingers tangle together and it's stupidly romantic, and _finally_.

* * *

(Their date is a simple outing to a place Tony's influence gets them into, and Steve doesn't know why but he feels marginally better when all Tony has to do is smile and they're in, no reservation, no waiting. It almost feels like old times, that cocky ability showing up, and when they settle at the table, Steve tells him, "Wits hay particular white."

Tony shrugs, but he's smirking.

Then the menus come and it falls a little as he tries to read it, eyes crossing when he tries to focus. The frustration is building even as he tries to keep it off his face and Steve jerks his chair over, closes his hand around the one Tony's rested on the table.

"Bright stars," Steve mutters with his own grin, rubs his thumb over Tony's fingers before lifting them to his lips.

And holy shit, yeah, that's Tony Stark _blushing_ —for all of two seconds—before he clears his throat, closes up his menu and gives the waitress his most winning smile.)

It's Clint who wakes them in the morning, throwing open the door to Steve's room without any warning or shame, and announcing, "Well, that answers the question."

Tony throws a pillow at him; Steve shouts in almost perfect unison with Phil who'd appeared like a ninja from the nothingness and apologizes as he yanks Clint out of the room by his shirt collar.

"We were looking for Tony, no need to get up," Phil informs, then closes the door and Steve can still hear the rising domestic that's taking place in the hallway.

"Ugh."

Steve licks his lips, smiling, as Tony thumps his head back to the mattress then attempts to steal Steve's pillow. They end up sharing it and each other as Tony kisses him and Steve's hand falls to the place on Tony's back that makes him shiver if you press your fingers into it just right.

"Bright archway," Tony whimpers.

"Bright archway," Steve echoes.

* * *

He refuses to give up on the musical aspect—this the key, he's sure of it—and in the evenings, when Tony has to burn off the excess energy and deluge of ideas that sex apparently gives him (Steve may or may not want to grin every time Tony gets that look in his eyes. Hey, he's still human. He's allowed to enjoy the fact that really good sex gets his boyfriend's genius brain to focus) and they're down in the workshop, Steve works on the fine details.

There's got to be something he's just not getting and, with a laptop propped on his knees and Darcy's occasional guidance via IM, he starts looking for the kinks. He subtly tries one method, then another on Tony, the buzz from the most recent endorphin rushes enough to keep the man from getting to upset. Instead, he just cocks a head at Steve in a gesture that clearly means "Thanks for talking at me in Gibberish. Care to try again?"

A few more days pass and they have their third, fourth, fifth dates (and their tenth, twelfth, fifteenth nights spent in bed). The idea sticks in his mind even as his ledger grows past the fifth page and their conversations aren't so stilted anymore, and this time, it's not a light-bulb moment that aligns Steve's thoughts, it's Tony himself.

Tony's in the shower when Steve gets back from a mission down in Little Italy, singing along to a Frank Sinatra song that's half garbled beneath the running water. The bathroom door is open and he grins when he sees Steve, through the glass surrounding the stall and he keeps singing as he waves the other man in.

"When I propose, anything goes," and Tony's looking at him and it's right then that Steve realizes he's being propositioned.

And he has to sit down as the next thought comes, a wave of relief curling down his spine and he licks his lips, lets himself smile.

"I want you to know anything goes," he replies with the song.

(Steve pins Tony to wall of the stall, Lover the next track to play and Steve sings the entire time, faltering with his thrusts, losing some of the words in the growls he pulls from Tony, loses other into wet kisses. But Tony wraps his arms around Steve's neck, cants his hips, tries to whisper them back and in his head all Steve hears is, "I love you," and it tips him over the edge.)

The excitement is enough to send him barreling out of their room after they've dressed, pulling Tony along behind him, and they descend into the workshop without a single spared glance toward their colleagues.


	2. Chapter 2

_epilogue_

There's a streak overhead and it's Tony, repulsors at full strength as he spins mid-air and shoots at the alien device following him. It's destroyed by the blast, but two more are headed his way that he can't see through the initial smoke and skittering shocks of circuitry.

A sudden blast of music plays through the suit mics. "TO THE LEFT TO THE LEFT."

He's tempted to reply with something else ridiculous (Because, Beyonce? Really?) but has only enough time to take off, gaining distance and recharging. He grouses as he climbs altitude, forcing the ice off his suit before it becomes too thick and firing off two more blasts at the things now coated in ice themselves.

The breath he lets out is charged with adrenaline, a pant, and he thinks, yes, this is definitely harder than he's remembered and it's not like last month when he'd passed by the muted television to see the opening in the team's defenses, had hijacked a comm, and started directing them himself. It's eaten away at his reserves and his head's killing him from the constant switching between spoken language (Steve) and snippets of music (JARVIS in response to Coulson, Barton, and Romanoff). He casts his gaze over the ground below, surprised to find things seem to have calmed and he slowly begins to descend.

"Rust run wits fro I without," Steve bitches the minute Tony touches down. _Don't do that again_.

Tony flips the faceplate back and pulls a patented bitchface, the one that means, "Yes, clearly I enjoy pushing my suit to a hard limit." Which to be fair, is something Tony **does** normally enjoy.

"Torque thou lamentando," Tony tosses back. _Quit your bitching._

Clint rolls his eyes at the retort and rubs the back of his hand across one bloody cheek, and points at the SUVs rolling into the cleared zone, Coulson loping out of one of them before it's even come to a stop. He mutters, "Castle," and everyone nods in agreement as Coulson joins them and Steve repeats, "Castle."

"Castle Roman. Fore Office Romance." Phil hangs his head at the last two words, still unable to understand how Tony's mind had translated Debrief to Office Romance but he's certainly not going to ask; he gestures to the waiting cars, paying no heed to the SHIELD agent currently getting zapped by the wreckage of one of the devices—if he's too stupid to follow proper procedure, he needs a little electrocution. "River." _Go._

(In the car, Steve sits beside Tony, tangles their hands together under his shield and smiles as they turn to the Mansion—toward Castle, toward _home_ —and Tony lurches forward; there's a lively conversation going that Tony's animatedly joined in on, JARVIS playing snippets here and there and supplying the rest of the team with new words in the Tony Stark Lexicon.

He grins, watching it, listening to the lull of Sinatra, Coldplay, and Nine Inch Nails, and a few other bands he can't even begin to identify. Listens to the way Clint butchers a word in Vietnamese then how one in Urdu rolls off his tongue perfectly, how Natasha makes everything sound pointed and deadly even when she's smirking.

Coulson says something stern and Tony whines, and Steve thinks, _Finally. Finally._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/3266.html?thread=2079682#t2079682) in response to the following prompt:  
>  _I would like a fic where Tony takes a bad blow to head in some battle, and while his intelligence isn't affected, he ends up with a bad case of aphasia and really struggles to express himself verbally. At first, the other Avengers are secretly happy, because he's finally stopped talking their ears off about his various projects, but they start to feel worse and worse when they see how depressed he's getting because he can't go on missions because he can't communicate. Cue the Avengers doing everything they can to help Tony communicate better, and Steve just sitting with him in the workshop and listening to him and eventually figuring what words he's replacing other words with. And since Steve can understand Tony the best, Tony naturally spends the most time with him, and as Tony recovers they get closer and closer till they end up together._


End file.
